Images Alpha & Beta Testing

What is Alpha Testing ?

Alpha testing is a type of acceptance testing; performed to identify all possible issues/bugs before releasing the product to everyday users or public.  The focus of this testing is to simulate real users by using blackbox and whitebox techniques. The aim is to carry out the tasks that a typical user might perform. Alpha testing is carried out in a lab environment and usually the testers are internal employees of the organization. To put it as simple as possible, this kind of testing is called alpha only because it is done early on, near the end of the development of the software, and before beta testing.

What is Beta Testing?

Beta Testing of a product is performed by “real users” of the software application in a “real environment” and can be considered as a form of external user acceptance testing.

Beta version of the software is released to a limited number of end-users of the product to obtain feedback on the product quality. Beta testing reduces product failure risks and provides increased quality of the product through customer validation.

It is the final test before shipping a product to the customers. Direct feedback from customers is a major advantage of Beta Testing. This testing helps to tests the product in real time environment.